A Crash Course – Media Art X Performance Art – Maaike Bleeker and De Transmissie

An annual series of events specifically curated to introduce the exciting crossover domain between art, technology, science, and society to those not yet familiar with it. This year, the Crash Course in Art & Media Technology will focus on media art’s relation to music, dance, theater, and performance art.

Scenography is the crafting of stage environments and atmospheres. In this field, an integral part of the theater, technological innovations in stagecraft, lighting, sound and costume design give rise to new forms of dramatic expression. And more often than not, those innovations originate in or are inspired by the field of media art. In this Crash Course session we’ll explore how media art subdomains such as virtual and augmented reality, algorithmic art, projection mapping and wearable technologies have influenced the theater and challenged its scenographic traditions.

[Performance] De Transmissie, ‘BRUG’
BRUG is a multimedia performance about the personality of Rotterdam. Urban planning, music and live animation come together in this performance by artist duo De Transmissie.
Two urban planners (Schwarz and Stenvers) take you through the history and future of Rotterdam. How is a city built? For developing Brug, De Transmissie spoke with well-known and lesser-known Rotterdam ‘bridge builders’ and city planners. Their voices (including Riek Bakker, Sanne van Manen and Tom van Geest) and stories take you as a visitor through the journey of Rotterdam as a transforming city. This city is always changing, but for whom? And how many towers still fit?

Maaike Bleeker is a theater studies professor, a dramaturg and a translator. Her work combines approaches from the arts and performance studies with insights from philosophy, media theory and cognitive science. Much of her research focuses on processes of embodied and technologically mediated perception and transmission, with a special interest in the relationship between technology, movement and embodied perception and cognition. Current research subjects include social robotics, spectacular astronomy and the intersection of performance studies and space studies, posthuman performativity, corporeal literacy, digital archiving of artistic work, and artistic creation processes.

The core of De Transmissie consists of David Schwarz and Derk Stenvers, both Rotterdam-based artists. In their work, they combine a passion for language, music and image into multi-disciplinary theater. The first performance by de Transmissie, Pygmalion_off, won several awards at the Café Theater Festival 2018. With their podcast about gigantic building project Leidsche Rijn they were nominated for the NTR Podcast Prize in 2019. Together with technology platform SETUP they recently developed the performance Silicon Passion, in which they questioned our future with Big Tech. During this event, De Transmissie will perform their latest multimedia performance Brug.

Doors open at 19h, evening starts at 19.30h. If you join us online you will receive a link on the day of the event. Get yout ticket for all four events (at V2_ or online) or this single event here.